5 years and counting...

5 years ago from today, I was engaged. A month away from getting married to the greatest guy I'd ever met. I was so giddy and excited and could think of nothing else! Fast forward, and I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant with our second boy. Giddy and excited to (GET HIM OUT) be a mommy to another boy to fall in love with and to the 3rd greatest guy I've ever met.

 

Our anniversary is March 24, but because I am 8 1/2 months pregnant we decided to celebrate it a little early. We (mostly me...) decided to do a get away trip. Just a quick one, over night, alone and far enough away to feel like we'd gone somewhere but not TOO far that the car trip was unbearable. So we FINALLY agreed on Chattanooga, TN (2 hours away) and booked a room at a nice hotel. I got us a King suite with a whirlpool tub. When we arrived we checked in and instantly started our veg out evening! We spent a lot of time in the bathroom. Not because either of us were sick, but because that tub was a dream come true. Both Ryan and I enjoy baths... so we took FULL advantage of it and took a bath almost right when we got there then after walked across the street to one of our fav BBQ places Sticky Fingers (they don't have them here in Atlanta). It was delicious and quick and just what the doctor ordered. We were still like jello from our relaxing bath so eating was the cherry on top! After we got back and vegged out some more... ate dessert - we took another bath! That was followed up with going straight to bed in the giant King bed that was SO comfortable. Unfortunately for me... despite it's comfiness I did not sleep well. Mostly due to the small living resident in my womb. And as predicted... I woke up with the sun. Right at 7am. sigh.... the one time I COULD sleep in, I couldn't. Stupid achey back... We spent some time in bed watching tv, and my belly moving around with little guy doing his ninja tricks. Then got ready for breakfast at the hotel. And then before our shower, just in case... we took another bath! HEY! We were getting our money's worth right? 

So... that sounds pretty boring but let me tell you what. I haven't seen my love relaxed like that in a LONG time. He needed those baths. He needed that good sleep. WE need that alone time. We held hands, he helped my little waddling self across the street, we talked about whatever we wanted to... it was perfect. We of course missed Ben, but knew he was in good hands with his Nana and Poppy. Which lessened the stress levels even more. It was a little hard for Ryan to agree on splurging on a nice room like that, because we NEVER do this... ever. But I think he realized just how badly we BOTH needed it. We are about to become a family of 4 and knew that we needed this alone time with each other. And I'm SO glad we did it. Not that we weren't already, but it was like a whole new falling in love happened or something. So for that... it was NOT boring, but wonderful!

Our room

 

 

I love my husband. I love how he loves me... and how he knows me. It's taken us this whole 5 years to get to that point, but worth every minute. So here's to an eternity more!  Love you baby. :)

Cookie Monster

So we've gotten out most or all of the stuff out to get the baby's room ready. We have the crib set up and the changing table, that was never taken down, but I've cleaned it up and got out the burp cloths and all that stuff to put back on it. One of the things we got out was the baby monitor. Ryan plugged the speaker in out in the hallway to charge the battery, I had the receiver in the baby's room and was playing around with it and whispering in it and Ben heard and thought it was Cookie Monster. He was CRACKING UP, the most genuine bursts of laughter. He thought it was the funniest and coolest thing EVER. So I pretended and so did Ryan that it was him and then Cookie had to "go". That was Saturday, he's been asking ever since then if he can call Cookie again. So tonight we did it again. I sat in the baby's room and whispered to make it not only quiet but I guess my Cookie impression is done best through whispering! haha Again, he CRACKED UP... thought it was the funniest thing when he told Cookie "noodles". He asked Cookie if he liked cupcakes and just giggled tons. Ryan sat and laughed with him and asked Cookie (me) questions too, and asked what color Cookie was, I said "uuhhhhhhhhh... BLUE" and they both busted up. Ryan mostly because Ben was so tickled. I can't believe he believes it, first but how adorable it is that he thinks it's so funny! Ryan wants to record it next time, so if he does we'll post it. We'll see how long this lasts, and how many more calls to Cookie we'll be making! Maybe when he hears the baby crying through it soon he'll change his mind! haha I love that little guy of ours.
Tonight before bed he wrote mom and dad. We only had to show him once and he could write it all by himself. He tends to write things backwards, which is kind of weird, but we're working on that. He also wrote Hat, Cat, Bat and Mat for me. He also told me that he showed his friend Mia in class how to write her M right. He's a smarty pants! My little baby is going to be 4 in less than two weeks! ACK! He's so grown!

I've been thinking of doing this, and keep forgetting. But saw a friend do it on her blog and it reminded that it's a good idea! I do a lot of status updates on Facebook that are about the silly things Ben does or says and other parts of our lives, and want to copy and paste some of them in from there in to a blog post! 

-so, at 4am Ryan rolled over which woke me up for some reason. I briefly opened my eyes to see flashing lights out in the family room... it was the TV and Ben was watching it... We told him before bed that when he woke up IN THE MORNING he could go potty and turn the tv on (so we could sleep in). Apparently that really excited him all night (not even sure if he even slept), because he did that... and didn't understand why we were sending him back to bed! "I went potty! It was day time!" oi vey... that backfired. February 4 at 10:15am  

-Jeesh... This has been a busy morning for this little baby boy! He's been going non-stop for about 3 hours! Pushing, moving, hiccups, more pushing, occasional punches or kicks.... My tummy is tired!  January 31 at 12:26pm 

-favorite part of my day off so far, snuggling with my little cutie Benny. I don't get to do that very often, so it was nice. 2nd favorite part of my day- hearing baby boy's strong and healthy heart beating!!! January 26 at 7:37am 

-Ben just said "hey mommy I'm a bird so I eat snails"January 22 at 12:56pm 

-I just told Ben it was getting harder to bend and he said "when the baby comes out you can bend" January 10 at 7:10am 

-And he's off! My nephew is officially at the MTC to start his 2 year long mission for the LDS church! So proud of him and feeling SO old! December 28, 2011 at 2:58pm
Well, that's good for now. I'll have to do that again soon- from further back.
Ben's been a little bit of a stinker boy lately. We've been having a lot of fights with him over dinner and him actually eating it, we know he is hungry... but I don't know what he's out to achieve during these protests and arguments with us. To annoy me? Probably, because at the same time he's been very naughty to his mama. He'll listen to dad, but a lot of the time will do the complete OPPOSITE of what I've just instructed him to do. One night I had had just about enough of it and it made me cry- I think he felt bad that he hurt my feelings and hasn't really done it since then- but it's starting to happen again. I know, it's the age- and I'm his mommy, but that doesn't mean I have to like this behavior. We'll just keep plugging on, guessing what we need to do next!
I'll be 32 weeks this week, which means we've got 2 months to go. On one hand it feels like it's going by fast, but on the other- I am SO tired and sore lately that it feels like it will take forever. We finally got Ben moved in to his "new" room this weekend. We even set up the crib, however- the baby's room is in disarray but that is one of my goals/chores to complete with in this week. Ben LOVES his room, we just need to come up with a "theme" of sorts, or at least good decor. Any ideas? For an almost 4 year old? I don't really want anything super commercial or like Disney themed or anything... but I'm kind of sticking with some brighter primary color accents. He's got two throw pillows in there that are bright green, almost lime, and orange circles and I want to play off that. He has an "I Am a Child of God" poster too that has lighter blues, but then primary colors in it as well. We'll see. Ryan thought it would be cool to find an old skateboard and screw up on the wall as decoration, or even make it a shelf. He might be too young for that though. We're getting him a new bed as well and it will be black. ANYWAY... we're getting there. I'm wearing down quicker towards the end of the day. It's getting harder to move, bend over, get out of chairs/couches/bed, it's getting more and more uncomfortable to sleep... overall I am just SO excited to see what this little guy looks like and what kind of personality he adds to our home! I know he already loves his brother and daddy, because whenever they're around and he can hear them- he wiggles and moves a lot! As soon as he hears Ben's voice in the morning, he wakes up too. It's adorable.
We got a bit of really good news, in about the past 3 years we've not been able to file our taxes electronically because someone else has been using Ben's SSN# to claim him on their taxes as well as us. They usually beat us to it. We got audited for 2009, won the audit (obviously, he's OUR kid...) and when we filed this year we were able to file electronically! Which hopefully means (crossing fingers) that they got the jerk that stole it! Relief. I just kind of wish we knew who it was.
Okay, tomorrow is work and I need to prepare and go to bed. I've got a little case of the sniffles. Until next time...
I leave you with this HILARIOUS picture of Ben I took last night at IKEA while he was waiting for me to use the restroom. No he wasn't mad, he was being silly because I told him his staticky (sp?) hair looked funny, so he made a funny face! I can't get over how funny it is!!! He's such a character!